


The Tale of the Healer and the Traveler

by BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse



Series: Naruto Fics [51]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Haruno Sakura is So Done, Haruno Sakura-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29499402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse/pseuds/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse
Summary: The girl blinked, her eyes widening after a moment. "Actually, yes! A young man is currently staying here, a traveler heading south. He was looking for a healer that would be willing to travel with him across the desert. If you want, I could inform him of your presence?"Sakura gave her a bland smile, nodding. "Yes, thank you, that would be lovely." GaaSaku fantasy au
Relationships: Gaara/Haruno Sakura
Series: Naruto Fics [51]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1473923
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	The Tale of the Healer and the Traveler

**Author's Note:**

> I have 10/10 never written this pairing and it's hard af. It was original for an exchange but then I realized that it had one of the giftee's squicks and I couldn't gift it to them anymore. :( so, instead, I'm gifting it to anyone that likes gaasaku lol

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**The Tale of the Healer and the Traveler**

* * *

"I'm peeing all the time."

"Uh-huh," Sakura hummed, her back turned to the patient behind her.

"I'm also getting, like, super bad headaches," the woman continued, her grating voice making Sakura twitch slightly, even as she continued to grind the herbs in front of her.

"I really kind of have to stress how much I'm peeing because I don't think you understand-"

"M'am," Sakura interrupted, dumping the herbs into a pouch and turning toward her patient, "you're pregnant. Drink this tea and go to your local midwife for further help."

Sakura ignored the woman's shocked expression, hastily packing her supplies before taking her leave, making her way away from the annoying harpy. Sakura was trained as a midwife, she could have absolutely told the woman what herbs she should take and what items she should avoid, but if she had to listen to her harp on for even a single second more, she would've wanted to punch the woman and she liked to think she wasn't the kind of person who punched pregnant ladies.

As tempting as the woman made it seem.

Sakura scoffed, ignoring the flirty smirk a man sent her way as she walked past, her annoyance turning into frustration. Pregnancies, scratches, and the common cold. Over and over she was forced to treat the same symptoms for the same causes, never challenged. Never anything that warranted more than a few copper pieces. She grimaced at the reminder, the two copper pieces the woman had given her for a consultation jingling slightly in her almost empty coin pouch.

It had been a year since she made the decision to venture out on her own and she was still working for copper while holding dreams of gold. Sakura had more than enough talent for a truly gruesome case of the plague or even a dismemberment! She was Tsunade's best and brightest; she could diagnose anything and heal everything, and yet she was stuck treating ignorants in backwater villages simply because she didn't have the means to make it in the more populated cities.

No one ever told her that to make it big she needed to start big.

Sakura was a miracle worker with the herbs she gathered, her eyes intent and mind sharp when it came to diagnosing problems, but she still hadn't saved enough to purchase any specialized instruments, let alone enough money to rent a space in a shop to run her own clinic.

Sakura liked helping people; really, she did. Seeing people breathe easily for the first time after fearing for their lives always gave her a rush. Even annoyed she felt a small thrill at being _right_ about someone's diagnosis. However, Sakura could only help people on copper for so long before she wouldn't even be able to herself.

Being poor sucked.

Sakura spent the journey to the next remote village collecting local herbs and cross-referencing them with her trusty diagnostic scroll. The scroll was huge and it was partially responsible for the muscles the thread across Sakura's arms and legs. Handed down to her from her mentor, it listed herbs that were useful, herbs that weren't useful, common diseases and where to find them, as well as symptoms for every known disease that Tsunade had ever encountered.

It was a treasure trove of knowledge that Sakura still hadn't been able to apply to anything.

The village at the end of the path was slightly larger than the one she had left earlier that day, at least twenty permanent houses dotting along the road. There was even a small inn near the middle of the houses, a great sign that there was some presence of travelers in the area. Where travelers went, disease spread, and Sakura had the opportunity to get paid.

It was small, but well looked after. It was a unique two stories tall, something that smaller inns usually couldn't maintain, not this far out into the mountains. There were two separate fireplaces crackling on opposite sides of the room, a very decadent sight for such a small inn.

"Hello, miss," a young woman greeted, her plain features twisted up into a false smile. Sakura didn't blame her for her false politeness; Sakura had experiences how aggravating it could be to smile at ingrates all day.

"Hello," Sakura greeted in return, nodding her head at the young woman. "I'm a traveling healer; do you know of anyone in need of my services?"

The girl blinked, her eyes widening after a moment. "Actually, yes! A young man is currently staying here, a traveler heading south. He was looking for a healer that would be willing to travel with him across the desert. If you want, I could inform him of your presence?"

Sakura gave her a bland smile, nodding. "Yes, thank you, that would be lovely."

The girl nodded, slipping out from behind the check-in desk and disappearing up a barely lit staircase located on the right. Sakura sighed as soon as she was out of sight, letting her right hand come up to comb through her short pink locks. Sakura wasn't the biggest fan of the desert; she much preferred sticking to forested areas where herbs were plentiful and free. There were a few desert plants that she supposes she wouldn't mind getting her hands on, but never enough to actually spend any length of time in the forsaken biome.

"Miss, this is the young man I told you about," the girl's voice interjected. Sakura turned, coming face to face with a rather sickly-looking redhead. The , though Sakura admitted that the word teen might have been a better descriptor, was pale even in the warm light of the inn, the darkness around his eyes evidence of some sleep deprivation. He was still handsome, even with the pinched look he wore on his face. His clothes were baggy, the kind of beige-based color palette that one would usually wear when traversing the harsh climate of the desert.

"Hello, I'm Sakura," she greeted him, giving her best shot at a friendly smile. "I hear you're looking to travel across the desert?"

The man continued to stare at her, his eyes narrowing as his eyes took a sweep of her. Sakura fought through an eye twitch, his fists clenching at her side.

"I'm dying," he told her bluntly, causing Sakura to blink in surprise, caught off guard by his candidness, but he continued before she had a chance to reply, "and I need a healer that can keep me alive for a week-long journey through the desert."

"What ails you?" Sakura asked, her eyes roaming his figure, trying to see if there were any other physical indicators besides his pale skin and bruised eyes.

"A curse," the man replied emotionlessly, a blank look on his face.

Sakura stared at him, incredulous. "What _actually_ ails you?"

"I am no joking," the man replied, still showing no emotion.

"Curses aren't real," Sakura said slowly, wondering at how bad the man's illness had addled his brain. Could she think of any disease that had all three symptoms: paleness, insomnia, and delusions?

"I do not need you to believe me," the man stated, a pinched frown erasing the blankness that he had held thus far. "I simply need a competent medic that can knock me out when necessary."

"Knock you out?" Sakura asked, confused.

"My curse includes insomnia," the man explained, not acknowledging the girl who finally excuses herself from her eavesdropping, making her way back to the desk as a couple scurries through the front door. "When I do manage to sleep, I tend to have violent nightmares. I often wake up with injuries. I need a healer who can knock me out at night and then be able to keep me from hurting myself."

Sakura watched the man, her mind racing. He was clearly delusional, though his supposed insomnia could be the key factor that was exasperating the issue. Night terrors and mild somnambulism would also worsen whatever disease he had. The real question was whether or not Sakura was willing to put up with it. She couldn't stay up for an entire week, not while traversing the desert. Could she wake up on the spot to stop her charge from hurting either himself or her? Was she willing to chance it?

"If you agree, this is your payment," the man cut off her thoughts, his pale hand holding out a sizeable coin pouch. It looked about half full, but there was enough weight to it that Sakura would be that there weren't just copper pieces in the bag.

"May I see?" Sakura asked, her heart speeding up. She almost wanted to cross her fingers for luck, hope filling her when the man simply held the bag out to her. She gently grabbed it from him, pulling the string open and peeking inside the surprisingly hefty bag.

To Sakura's surprise, the pouch held no gold coins; or any other coins for that matter. Instead, with a shakey hand and a held breath, Sakura pulled out the most gorgeous necklace she had ever seen in her entire life. A heavy gold chain greeted her vision, red and blue gems encrusted into the necklace in an ornate pattern, a vision that looked almost like the silhouette of a shifting sand dune. There were several smaller gems as well, clear and sparkling enticingly in the flickering light.

"What, What kind of gems are these?" Sakura asked, her voice no louder than a whisper. Her eyes stayed firmly on the sparkling necklace in her grasp, her mind racing. It looked expensive, though she admitted that didn't guarantee any of the gems, or even the gold, was real. Even if the entire necklace was fake, it had clear craftsmanship in it. Even a fake would catch a pretty price; a price high enough to put more than a few gold coins in Sakura's coin purse.

"Diamonds," the man replied blandly, his blue-green eyes locked onto the necklace, his frown now tinged with a bitter twist.

"D-Diamonds?!" Sakura hissed, immediately stuffing the necklace back into the bag, her eyes darting around them. She didn't see anyone besides them and the girl at the desk, the couple had already gotten a room and headed up the stairs the man had come from earlier. Still, Sakura's heart pounded at the thought of the necklace and its worth. It was, and Sakura thought this honestly, a necklace that someone would be tempted to kill for. "How did you get this?!"

"It was my mother's," the man told her, hand held out to accept the pouch back. Sakura hesitated for a moment, not because she wanted to try and swindle the man, but because she suddenly had far more questions about the man's identity than she had before this revelation. She handed it back nonetheless, rationalizing that it either was really his or that he had enough confidence to steal it and then pawn it off without repercussions.

"And they're real?" Sakura couldn't help but ask, watching as the man tucked the pouch into his pocket and pulled his cloak around to cover it, hiding it from view.

"Yes," he stated simply. "It is yours as soon as we arrive in my village; simply escort me across the desert and keep me alive long enough to get there."

Sakura would be the first person to admit that following a strange man into the desert on the promise of unbelievable jewelry was a fool's errand, but the image of the necklace and all that she could accomplish with the payout fogged her vision. She could have quality instruments with that money, a storefront and office paid for in the busiest part of a large city; she could make a living doing what she loved with the money that necklace was surely worth.

With a deep breath and a determined nod, Sakura said, "You've got yourself a deal."

"We leave at sunset," the man said, turning away from her to head towards the stairs.

"Sunset?" Sakura asked, taking a step to follow him. He paused, looking back at her with an unreadable expression. "Why sunset?" she repeated.

"Deserts are hot," the man deadpanned. "Many of the animals bunker down during the freezing night and explore during the scorching day."

"And the ones that don't?" Sakura asked, shooting the question at the man.

"Watch your feet," he replied just as quickly, once more turning away from her and heading for the stairs. Sakura stared after him, incredulous. He paused at the steps, not bothering to turn around before stating, "You best find a more fitting wardrobe," before he disappeared up the steps.

"How are we supposed to see in the dark?" Sakura bit out the question, frustration clear in her voice. The man had already left, the question left hanging in the air, unanswered. Sakura didn't regret agreeing to help him, not really, but as she tore open the door to leave the inn and see if any of the local women were clothing sellers, she viciously wished that curses were as real as the deluded man believed they were.

**Author's Note:**

> The chapter count in total is 5 and i will update this whenever i get around to it. (with my track record? pffft)


End file.
